J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

This page contains three distinct landscape sketches. The main study depicts the harbour at Salerno with a number of boats docked along the waterfront in front of the fourteenth-century church, the Chiesa della Santissima Annunziata near Porta Catena. Of particular interest is the vessel in the centre which is a felucca, a wooden sailing vessel with a lateen or triangular sail which was a common mode of transport in southern Italy. The scene in the top right-hand corner, meanwhile, represents the Mole of Salerno and the view looking south-west along the Amalfi coast in the direction of Vietri. In the foreground is a small rowing boat filled with figures and Turner’s viewpoint may also be from a boat leaving the harbour. For further sketches of Salerno see folio 47 verso (D15824).

At the centre of the right-hand edge is a third sketch, part of a larger composition continued from folio 45 (D15819). Turner has folded back the previous pages in order to extend the view onto this sheet, and as his inscription indicates, it represents part of the Bay of Naples, specifically the Posillipo Hill with the distant island of Capri beyond.